Harmutty Golden Tippy Assam

The first of the teas I received from my (still anonymous until they step forward or I can decipher the worn away writing on the package) Secret Santa! The leaves are very fine and curly with a nice golden hue to them. They have a light malty aroma to them and a little bit of dried fruit.

They release their color quickly on steeping, so I’m going to limit the time to about a minute and a half for this first attempt, and start the tasting without any additives. Even with this short steep time it’s got a decent amount of astringency, so I’m glad I didn’t go too much longer. It also has a pronounced malty breadiness, almost moving into the realm of a light smokiness. I’m putting in just a little sugar and half/half to round it out and see what happens. Still quite strong, not terribly complex, but a good Monday morning cup to start the day with.

I steeped this tea for 3 and a half minutes with boiling water and used 2 teaspoons for a 6-cup pot.

The dry leaves were fruity-smelling and i was really looking forward to tasting it, but when the tea was brewed, I couldn’t smell anything the taste of my first cup was bland and boring, with a very bitter aftertaste.

For my next cup, I added a little cinnamon to sweeten it a little. This usually works for blacks, but in this case it didn’t really help and there was no difference in the taste – I was kind of hoping that the cinnamon would bring out the flavour of the tea, but no such luck.

On to the third cup, with milk and sugar added. A little better, but the milk doesn’t really do anything for the tea.

Fourth and final cup. Just sugar. Much better. Still not fabulous, but not awful. And I had such high hopes for this tea….

I will refrain from rating this tea now, but I will play around with the steeping parameters tomorrow and see if i can’t make this tea better.